Demoulas Brothers

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The Demoulas Brothers were the founders of DeMoulas Supermarkets, later known as Market Basket, a grocery market chain in eastern New England. It has stores from central New Hampshire to Bristol County, Massachusetts with headquarters in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.

[edit] Early years

Telemachus ("Mike") Demoulas (b. October 10, 1920 - d. May 24, 2003) and George A. Demoulas (b. 1919 - d. June 27, 1971) in Lowell, Massachusetts, were two out of the six children born to Greek immigrants, Athanasios ("Theoni") Demoulas and Efrosine Soulis,^[1] originally from Kalambaka, a small village north of Athens. The brothers founded the chain in the early 1950s when they bought their parents' mom and pop-style store in Lowell, Massachusetts for $15,000 and converted it into a modern supermarket with lower prices from their competitors. The business has grown considerably. As of 2004, it ranked number 210 as the World’s Largest Family businesses.^[2] Member of the board of directors, Arthur S. Demoulas was rated Boston's 8th wealthiest person in March of 2006 with assets of $1.6 billion.^[3]

In 1948 Mike married Irene Psoinos and had four children: Frances (1950), Glorianne (1952), Arthur T. (1955), and Caren (1959). In 1953 George married Evanthea Koukias and they too had four children: Fotene (born in 1954), Evan (1955), Diana (1956) and Arthur S.(1958). In 1971 George died suddenly of a heart attack while vacationing with his family in Greece, he was only 51 years old at the time. At the time of George's death, the two sides of the Demoulas families owned an equal number of shares in the company but George's family claims that changed with the death of their father in 1971. Since then both families were in legal disputes over the business.^[4]